Overall I liked this series. It's a detailed retelling of Captain America's origin, mostly true to the original tale. The art is good, or at least it's the kind of art I like in a comic. A lot happens within the narrative as a whole, and it holds together pretty well; I thought it started to drag a bit in the fourth book, but it still held my interest.
And here's where the spoilers start, and I do mean spoilers. I'm giving details here. It's an old book, it takes work to get it, no one who hasn't read it is going to go after it on my say-so. :)
The first issue expands greatly on just how Steve Rogers got into the program that made him into Captain America. Here it's a lengthy process involving extensive training (and several other candidates) in addition to the process we all know about; a mentor (James Fletcher, "American Eagle") and a potential love interest (Lt. Cindy Glass) are intruduced, and we see Cap develop gradually into a confident hero--we see his own contribution, and we see that the Super-Soldier serum didn't do it all--much of what makes him Captain America was in him all along.
(This is, I think, different from the original tale, where the idea seemed to be that this could have happened to anyone if they were in the right place at the right time with the right motivation.) Because of all the trouble they are having at the project, Cap is sent to Camp Lehigh where it's felt he will be safe.
As you can guess, this does not sit well with him and pretty soon he is going after a ring of profiteers who have been stealing supplies.
The second issue finds Cap continuing with his secret missions and hoping to conceal them from the folks back at the project. This, of course, is not going to happen,
and he is soon discovered, given his costume and the name Captain America, and sent on a series of not-so-secret missions. Issue 2 also introduces Bucky to Cap; when they meet, Bucky is trying to explain to a group of soldiers the reason why he doesn't have the cigarettes he had promised them.
Cap rescues him, and although Bucky thinks that Steve isn't the brightest light on the tree, he likes him and they become friends. This issue also introduces some of the minor villains of the piece, three biologically-engineered Nazis called Blitzkrieg (who possesses lightning powers, naturally), the Sauressprutze (who wields a tank of flesh-eating gas), and the Zahnmorder (a sadistic torture expert), and they are memorable. They quickly and efficiently make their way through the remaining scientists on the Super-Soldier project. They have also, with the help of the mysterious Agent X, captured Glass and Fletcher.
The latter they take, the former is left for Cap to rescue in the next issue.
In that third issue, Cap does indeed rescue Lt. Glass, and they set about heading to Europe to rescue Fletcher as well. While gathering supplies at Camp Lehigh, they are discovered by Bucky, who learns in this way that Steve Rogers is Captain America, and who manages to get himself into the mission.
Memorable in this issue: first, the interaction between the villains Blitzkrieg and the Zahnmorder, who despite their obvious evil seem to share a real camaraderie, based perhaps on their common sadism;
and second, the scene where Cindy Glass turns on Bucky and we learn that she has in fact been working against the project from within all along.
Oh, and Fletcher dies, throwing himself from a window rather than tell what he knows under torture, and falling at the feet of Captain America, who is on his way to the rescue. And the Red Skull and Captain America finally meet, and Cap and Bucky are captured.
Issue 4 is where the suspension of disbelief starts to fail a bit. I'll just go over the plot and you'll see why. Cindy Glass is revealed by the Red Skull to be Agent X, although she is clearly not thrilled to have Cap know about this. Cap and Bucky are taken to a concentration camp. A concentration camp equipped with an arena, where the Jewish prisoners will be forced to watch Cap and the Red Skull fight. In his cell, Cap sits silently and passively, while in the next cell over Bucky tries to talk him out of his funk--Fletcher's death and Cindy's betrayal have hit him pretty hard.
Finally he is taken to the arena, where he and the Skull--clad in black medieval armor--fight, not only with shields but with weapons such as maces, whips and swords. While Hitler watches.
In the meantime, Bucky has escaped, and Cindy Glass has sneaked down to the prison area to give him the master keys, showing that although as Agent X she is responsible for the deaths of the scientists, she's not all bad--Steve's inherent goodness has had that effect on her.
While Bucky frees the prisoner, Cindy redeems herself by attempting to help Cap in the fight, only to be shot and killed immediately. Bucky then comes to the rescue, in a tank he has liberated from the camp's armory,
and he and Cap ride off, escaping successfully. The Red Skull is thisclose to killing himself, but thinks better of it. Cap and Bucky and at least some of the escaped prisoners fly to London, and all is well. Apart from Cap's anguish over Cindy. Soon Bucky joins him in costume, and the mini-series is over.
So yes, overall I quite liked this series. There were a few things that I didn't care for, but on the whole I'd recommend it.
I did find myself comparing this book's version of how Bucky became Cap's partner to the one in the Winter Soldier storyline. In this version, Bucky wheedles Cap into taking him along on a mission (and not, at that moment, into making him his partner) by offering to get him to where he needs to go (and, incidentally, mentioning all the people he knows in the media who might be interested in what's going on there). In this book Bucky is the guy on base who can get anything:
"Now that I know he's Cap, I realize he needs me more than ever. It's like this--I can do the dirty little tricks he's not allowed to. I can get the kind of information that goes beyond regular military methods. I may look young, but I'm a very worldly guy."
In this book the "dirty little tricks" are less dirty than those played by Brubaker's Bucky, but it's still a step in that direction--the idea that while Cap as icon has to be held to a higher standard of behavior, that doesn't mean that the things he can't do don't still need to be done. And yes, Bucky here also knows how to handle a gun (or a tank) when necessary.
Actually, the Bucky here reminds me a bit of the streetwise kids you see in old 1940s movies, ala the Bowery Boys, so his depiction as confident, smooth-talking, wisecracking, and full of bravado is not inaccurate for the period, and in that I think this book does a good job of capturing the feeling of the Golden Age books.
1 comment:
Since I'm old, I was buying this as it came out, and I seem to recall a long wait between issues. Or, at least what was at the time a long wait...
Anyway, welcome to blogging and comics!
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